Absalom Porter Dowdle (1819-1897)
}} Biography They Came to Utah 1847 with ox team. Their family home- Santaquin, Utah. Missionary to Australia. Farmer. Mississippi Saints 1846 Pioneer Company Numbered amoung the participants in the Mississippi Saints 1846 Pioneer Company, a early Mormon pioneer wagon train that left Mississippi in 1846 to join the Mormon exodus to Utah. This group Brigham Young's vanguard company and spent the winter of 1846/47 at Fort Pueblo where the were joined by soldiers of the sick detachment of the Mormon Battalion. They reached Salt Lake City in late summer of 1847. MISSISSIPPI COMPANY OF SAINTS Brigham Young called John Brown, a native of Tennessee, to help organize and lead the Saints living in Monroe County, Mississippi to their new destination in California. In company with William Crosby, D.M. Thomas, William Lay, James Harmon, and George W. Bankhead, he left on April 8, 1846 by way of a southern route to the Platte River and were to meet up with the migrating Saints from Nauvoo. At Independence, Perry County, Missouri the Robert Crow family of twelve members joined the caravan. This group waited for two weeks for the Nauvoo Saints to arrive. When they felt it was futile to continue to wait they moved on the Oregon Trail towards Fort Laramie. Here they were advised to continue on to Fort Bend Colorado. Here they obtained corn, food, and needed supplies. On August 7, 1846 they arrived at Pueblo, Colorado where it was decided that they would wait out the winter. Absalom P. Dowdle was appointed Presiding Elder of the Latter-day Saint Pueblo branch. On September 1, 1946, John Brown and his five men returned to Mississippi. On September 12, these men met up with the Mormon Battalion and told the soldiers that a group of Saints were settled in at Pueblo. This gave Lieutenant A. J. Smith food for thought regarding the situation with the many women, children, older folks, unruly soldiers, and sick soldiers that were slowing down the movement of this battalion. The Mississippi Saints were soon joined by the Brown, Nelson, and Higgins Sick Detachments. Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel, Mississippi Company (1847) MISSION PRESIDENT-- 1856-1857. Absalom Porter Dowdle, president of the Australasian Mission from 1856 to 1857, was born June 1, 1819 in Franklin County, Alabama, a son of Robert Dowdle and Sarah Ann Robinson. He married Sarah Ann Holladay and came west with the so-called Mississippi Company in 1846 where they spent the winter at Pueblo, Colorado on the Arkansas River. He was appointed to preside over the Saints at Fort Pueblo. Mr. Dowdle, with his family and other families, arrived in Salt Lake Valley with Captain James Brown's detachment of the Mormon Battalion which followed a short distance behind the original pioneers of 1847. Not long after Elder Dowdle was called to fill a mission to Australia arriving at Sydney April 1, 1852. When Augustus Farnham was released of his duties as president of the Australasian Mission, he left Elder Dowdle in charge. He presided until June 27, 1857 when he sailed for America on the ship Lucas homeward bound." His journal states he had a wife and two children in Australia. Marriage and Family His Children - Sarah Catherine Dowdle born 6 May 1846, Osage River in Missouri, Martha Jane Dowdle born 15 Nov 1847, in Salt Lake City, Utah, the second child born in the valley, Absalom Porter Dowdle, born in 1849, Provo Utah, Mary Elizabeth Dowdle, born 17 Jan 1851 or 1852, Coalville, William Porter Dowdle, born at Center Creek, Wasatch, Utah, Robert Thomas born in 1860, Coalville, Utah, Louisa Ann born in Midway, Utah, John Henry born in Coalville, Utah in 1868. References * Absalom Dowdle * Dowdle in Franklin County, Alabama * Dowdle in Weber County, Utah